The Inferi Wars
by Chandagnac
Summary: The British speak of the Dark Lord Voldemort with such fear that they dare not say his name. But there have been other dark lords in other times and places. One of them raised an army of the undead and sought to conquer the Balkans. This is his story as told by one of the men who fought against him (set in the same world as 'Broken Lives').
1. Part One

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any related books, toys, games or other consumer products. This is a work of fanfiction._

_This story is only tangentially related to the Harry Potter books. I'm trying to shine a light on a different part of the same world, a part of the world that doesn't often get explored in Harry Potter fanfiction._

_I suggest that you read 'Broken Lives', my other work of Harry Potter fanfiction, before you read this. You see, in this story, I'm developing the backstory of one of my original characters from 'Broken Lives' (and also some minor characters from canon). Also, I'm experimenting with the first-person narrative mode._

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**Part One**

Mínós could tell you this story better than I can. He was the hero of the piece, the man who slew the necromancer and brought an end to what is now known as the Inferi Wars.

Of course, back then, it wasn't a war. It was police action. The International Confederation of Wizards sent a task force to bring Mrlakenstein to justice for his crimes against humanity. And- well- Mrlakenstein was outraged that anyone would dare tell him what he could and couldn't do.

His depredations grew ever more savage and vicious. Entire villages of muggles were slaughtered or dragged off under cover of night to be a part of his "experiments". He raised hundreds from the dead to serve in his army of Inferi. He unearthed the Horcrux of an ancient warlord, the Phanariote Greek, Constantine Mausolus, used it to bring him back to life and to force him into servitude. Most of the people who died in the so-called Inferi wars were muggles- rural Transylvanians or Yugoslavs- but I never heard that the various Ministries of Magic found it difficult to cover up the many deaths and disappearances. A shadowy conflict raged across Eastern Europe of which the non-magical community remained blissfully unaware. I suppose that's something to be thankful for.

I am Tihomir Stojanović. I was part of that international task force. I was not much of a soldier, but my skills as a Healer were very much in demand. I was only a child during the Second World War- the war with Grindelwald. Both of my parents died in that war. When I signed up to fight I felt that I was honouring their memory. I was naive, back then. Still, I can't say that I regret my decision.

During the so-called "Inferi Wars" I saw more horrors than I can describe. I saw innocent people, old men, women and children, ripped limb-from-limb by cold undead hands. I fought horribly mutated monsters spawned from Mrlakenstein's vats. And I was betrayed by one whom I'd trusted.

I had liked Sadko Krichevskiy. That day, I thought nothing of it when he entered the kitchen; I was preparing a meal, I expected he'd come to help me. It was a communal effort, usually. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, holding a sharp knife. I was curious as to what he was going to cook- our supplies were running low so I couldn't think of anything he'd need to cut- but I didn't question it.

He stabbed me in the back.

I collapsed to the floor, spilling my blood all over the place. I was in shock. I looked up into Krichevskiy's suddenly vacant, inhuman eyes and saw only cold malice there. He was one of Mrlakenstein's creatures. Had he been like that all along? Or had Mrlakenstein found some way to subvert him?

Antonin Dolohov saved me. I saw a flash of purple flame and Krichevskiy was dead before he hit the ground. I drifted into unconsciousness after that. I was lucky. There was another Healer on hand. Obviously, I did not die.

I wish I could say that I foresaw what Antonin Dolohov would become. I should have seen the signs from the start. He was a great fighter, gleeful in battle, bloodthirsty and violent. He had a cruel sense of humour and very little restraint. He was a brute, I knew that. But brutes can be useful. He was made for war. He enjoyed fighting; for him, it was a life-affirming experience; nothing delighted him so much as the anticipation of carnage.

We were comrades-in-arms. He saved my life more than once. He was my friend. I suppose you think that I am not a very good judge of character? Well, all the evidence is against me. I can't argue with that.

For a long time we were unable to assault Mrlakenstein's fortress. It was hidden behind a Fidelius Charm. We tried, but we could not break through. Too often, the only thing we could do was wait for Mrlakenstein to make a move. A few times we managed to intercept his raiding parties before they could attack muggle villages; more often than not, we got there in time to save some of the victims. Once, we arrived much too late. The village was deserted- no, more than that- it was utterly devoid of life. Every man, woman and child was gone from that place, and so were all the cats and dogs, and the cows were gone from the fields. Even the birds seemed to have been frightened away.

An eerie calm had settled over the empty village. We searched all of the houses, hoping someone left alive in there. I remember broken windows, unmade beds and doors that had been ripped off their hinges. In one of the houses the owner had piled up furniture against the door to form a makeshift barricade. But it was no good; the Inferi had smashed the door and the barricade into so many splinters. There was a spray of dried blood on the wall behind.

There was a pair of well-worn boots lying abandoned in the middle of one of the roads through the town. They were still warm inside. (Don't ask me why I felt the urge to feel around the inside of someone else's boots. I have no good excuse. It was a whim of mine.)

We had hoped in vain. There were no survivors. The Transylvanian Ministry of Magic erased all muggle records of the village and wiped it from the memories of anyone that they would have expected to know about it. That caused a few problems later on... but that's not the point of this story.

I count that as one of our worst failures. By that time, the war was getting to be a long string of defeats. The task force had suffered some disastrous losses; Stefan Kokoska ended up in an ogre's stewpot; Libuše Zemanová and Caspar Belhumeur were both slain by Constantine Mausolus; I don't even know what happened to Farfarello Volonté but I've not seen him since.

In another month or two, I think the International Confederation of Wizards would have given up. We would have been sent home in disgrace. Like one of the warlords of old, Mrlakenstein would have continued to carve out his own empire, in the Balkans and in Eastern Europe. The Statute of Secrecy would have crumbled after that. Mrlakenstein didn't seem to care. He didn't bother to hide his atrocities from muggles; he let his enemies do that for him. The entire wizarding world would have had to deal with the very real threat of discovery. Our way of life would not have been left unscathed.

We won the war with a last, desperate gamble. We knew that Mrlakenstein's fortress was protected by the Fidelius Charm and we guessed that Constantine Mausolus was his Secret Keeper. Mrlakenstein's mastery of Mausolus's Horcrux was enough to ensure that he remained loyal.

Constantine Mausolus was born (for the first time) in the sixteenth century when the Ottoman Empire was nearing its height. He was sent to Durmstrang to train in the arts of wizardry. His family had a dream that he would return one day, using his miraculous powers to free them from the Turks; they dreamed of a return to the glory days of the Basileia tōn Rōmaiōn. But Constantine didn't care for anyone not himself. In his mind he was the hero of an earlier time: a dark age of killing and conquest and the subjugation of the weak. He vowed that he would find the strength to build his own kingdom atop a mountain of corpses.

It's not hard for a wizard to take a few acres of land and use wards and muggle repelling to charms to seal it off from the outside world. Large areas have been made unplottable, erased from the map, made magically inaccessible because the 'owners' of that land decided that they didn't owe anything to anyone else and that they were going to live out the rest of their lives free from interference in a land all of their own. That's one of the reasons why the USA's Department of Magic is sometimes called "that government which governs least". Apparently it's a term of endearment.

Anyway, over many years, Constantine Mausolus built an empire, hiding it behind wards and muggle-repelling charms. He gathered an army of exiles, malcontents and mercenaries and set about amassing more territory. In the end, I think his empire was about half the size of modern Vojvodina: quite an impressive feat. He tried to make himself immortal, using the power of human sacrifice to split his soul; he placed half of it in a ring set with a pretty amethyst.

Of course he got too greedy and he was killed by the Turks. Neither blades nor bullets would pierce his immortal flesh, so they burned his body with Fiendfyre. For centuries, Constantine Mausolus was doomed to roam the lands as a bodiless spectre until the day when Mrlakenstein decided that he might make for a good henchman.

The Fidelius Charm is very powerful magic. Mrlakenstein used it to hide the location of his fortress from the rest of the world. As long as his Secret-Keeper didn't reveal it to anyone he was untouchable. The Fidelius Charm has some limitations; it is significantly weakened if the Secret-Keeper stays inside the area protected by the spell. For that reason, you can't be your own Secret-Keeper. Although... I've heard of plans to make an upgraded version of the spell to remove that limitation. It's a very bad idea. Yes, I'm sure it would be a great comfort for civilians to be able to ensure their families' safety in times of war. But it was bad enough that Mrlakenstein hid the knowledge of the location of his fortress inside the mind of a man who was enslaved to his will and therefore incapable of betraying him. We could never have won the Inferi Wars if Mrlakenstein had been able to make his hideout _completely_ impenetrable.

I should tell you about some of my friends. By the end of the war, the other members of the task force were people I trusted with my life. Many times we had fought together, side by side, against Mrlakenstein's army of nightmares and grotesques. We had faced appalling odds and we had survived. I could not help but treat them as I would my own family.

Krichevskiy's betrayal hurt me terribly. You must understand, I was a very young man in those days, barely more than a teenager, raw and idealistic. After Krichevskiy stabbed me, and after I'd recovered from my injuries, I faded to a brooding shadow of what I had been, barely eating and not saying more than a few words to anyone. I could tell that Dolohov was concerned; he threatened to force-feed me. Ana Kabotchnick was more sympathetic, but after she had finished being shocked by what had happened she didn't have anything to say. She cared... and that was some comfort to me.

I didn't come to my senses until Mínós Hrabal, the leader of the task force, found time to come to talk to me. I was in awe of Mínós. He was already a legend in those days, a slayer of dragons and giants.

He had been just a teenager during the war with Grindelwald, but he had been part of a group of schoolchildren who had caused a lot of trouble for Grindelwald's followers after the destruction of the Fane of the Three Sisters in Prague. Later, after he finished his education, he became an Auror of some renown, but he resigned after suffering a personal tragedy. He then dedicated his life to hunting down and killing the most terrifying monsters, those that had developed a taste for human flesh and had grown too bold and brazen to be allowed to live.

Not all of the monsters he killed were magical beasts. Some of them were human, men like Mrlakenstein.

'I know how you feel,' he rasped. He always spoke quietly- I think something damaged his throat a long time ago- but he rarely had any trouble making himself heard. 'Believe me.'

He had my full attention. I knew he was a man worth listening to.

'You thought that there was a part of your life that was inviolate, where you could seek refuge from the horrors of war, where you would be safe and protected. You thought wrong. This war can and will touch every part of your life- when you are off-duty, at rest, relaxing with friends- you cannot afford to be complacent. Not while Mrlakenstein lives.'

He breathed a deep, shuddering sigh. 'Once, I had everything that I wanted in life. I don't have that anymore. Once, I was a husband and a father. Now I am neither of those things. Once, I believed that I could keep my two lives separate. By day, I was a servant of the law, fighting for justice. When I went home at night, I was a normal family man. Now, I am still a servant of the law. I will fight to bring Mrlakenstein to justice. But I have nothing else.'

His eyes blazed with remembered pain; he was suffering the agony of a wound that could never be healed.

'Well, thank you for stopping by to talk to me, Mínós, sir,' I said sardonically. 'I feel better now.'

Actually, I was telling the truth. I did feel better, if only because I'd been confronted with the fact that there was someone worse off than me. It wasn't a nice thought, but the fears, worries and problems I'd been fretting about didn't seem so bad after that.

Mínós wasn't very good at inspirational speeches. He wasn't the kind of man to rally the troops with a few well-chosen words, but he was an effective leader despite that. He seemed to exude an air of authority and stoic determination. Ever since I first met him I had been impressed by his courage, his willingness to risk his life for his teammates, the fact that he always appeared calm and unruffled even in the direst of situations. But then I learned more about him, about his past. There were times- only a couple of times- when the personality traits I had so admired were not in evidence, when Mínós Hrabal showed me a face filled with bitterness, sorrow and self-loathing. I wondered: was that his true self? Was the hero I had idealised nothing but a paper-thin mask for the real Mínós to hide behind?

'I have some advice for you, Tiho,' said Mínós, after he'd finished giving me his life history, after I'd said I felt better. 'Don't be afraid to enjoy life while you can. You only get one chance. Just be aware of how fragile it is, how easily it can all fall apart. You can spend years building the life you want and lose it all in the blink of an eye. So... cherish it while it lasts.'

Those words had a profound effect on me. In my mind they took on a greater significance than perhaps they really deserved. They have shape my life in ways that I'm sure Mínós didn't predict. I have lived a good life, on the whole. But there have been times when I have been tempted to do cowardly things to make my life easier. Somehow I've found the strength to stand up for my principles, to do the right thing; I'm not ashamed of the choices I've made.

It was a disquieting idea that Mínós planted into my head: that life is precious but also it is precarious and short. I was unsettled, it's true. And yet, I felt peculiarly liberated by it. I thought, what's the use in worrying about trivial things? Why worry at all? What's the worst that could happen?

Yes, I knew of many awful things could possibly happen to me. I could be betrayed again, I could be slain by the Inferi, or- even worse than that- I might be captured in battle and have to spend the rest of my (hopefully it would be short) life being experimented on by Mrlakenstein. The _worst_ that could happen was absolutely ghastly. But, from then on, I refused to let fear rule my life. I accepted the dangers, I was wary of them, I took sensible precautions. I didn't let fear stop me doing anything I wanted to do.

Anyway... I should get on with the story, shouldn't I?

We had no way of knowing that it would be the final battle. To us, it seemed like we were once again being plunged into a desperate situation. We received word that the Inferi had attacked an isolated farming community. It was a familiar story. Once again, we were too late to save everybody. I was disorientated for a moment after the Portkey took me there. I tripped over the broken body of an old man.

There was a _whoosh_ of flame over my head. Ana Kabotchnick had blasted an Inferius that had been shambling towards me. If not for her, I might not have scrambled to my feet in time to save myself. The Inferius burned like a torch. I saw it, the body of a man wreathed in flames, opening his mouth as if to scream. Still on fire, it crumpled to the ground in a foetal position.

'Thanks!' I shouted after Ana, but she had already rushed into the fray, lashing out at several more Inferi with a many-tongued whip made of fire. Over the course of the war, I had learned some potent fire spells and I was able to use them to good effect. Together, Ana and I made a pile of burnt and blackened dead bodies. We made sure there was no possibility that they would rise again a second time.

Elsewhere, the battle was fury and panic and confusion. I heard gunfire. I am a Pure-blood wizard, but I am not ignorant of the muggle world; I know that muggles have some hellishly impressive weapons of war.

A few of the members of the task force had guns as backup weapons. There was a lively debate about the matter; those of the pro-gun faction maintained that they needed effective backup weapons just in case they were ever deprived of their wands (also, it was a weapon that most wizards were likely to underestimate); the argument of the opposing faction was that "a wand is the only weapon a real witch or wizard will ever need. A wand is versatile- you can use the same wand to cast spells ranging from simple household charms to the deadliest of curses. A wand is stealthy- you can take a wand almost anywhere without it being at all suspicious." Some of the older members of the task force would reminisce about their experiences in the Second World War and that would be used to bolster the arguments of one side or the other. I'm sure that my friends kept that debate simmering even after they'd discussed every possible viewpoint and angle of argument. Just for the sake of having something to talk about. The war against Mrlakenstein had gone on for so long that it was the only _real_ thing in our lives.

I heard gunfire. I doubted that any of my teammates would fight the Inferi with guns if they had any other choice. You'd need a lot of bullets to bring down an Inferius. My teammates were more likely to use fire magic. Unless they had a good reason that I was unaware of.

I heard a cry. Sivard Nielssen had been shot in the shoulder. He was face-down in the dirt, bleeding profusely, out in the open where he'd be an easy target if anyone decided to finish him off. I went to help him. I was making plans in my head. I could have used a _Levicorpus_ spell to move him behind cover without risking myself, but that would make him an even more obvious, defenceless slow-moving target for anyone who might take a pot-shot at him.

So I darted out of cover, casting a Shield Charm to give myself an extra layer of protection against any wayward bullets. I made Nielssen feather-light, picked him up and carried him. One bullet ricocheted off my shield. A second bullet hit me in the back. My Shield Charm slowed it down so that when it hit my coat it bounced off. Then, a third bullet ploughed a furrow across my scalp. For a moment, I thought that my skull was cracked. Still, I was alive. Adrenaline numbed the pain and gave me the hysterical strength I needed to leap over the wall and to a place of temporary safety.

Nielssen was bleeding out. The bullet had pierced the subclavian artery in his right shoulder. He was dying- I had no time to think- I had to seal the wound and I had to do it _now_.

I was trembling so badly that my wand nearly slipped out of my fingers. Blood was dripping down my face. It was difficult- it took longer than it should have- but I managed it. My magic plugged the hole, held back the flood. I fed his body with some of my magical energy that it could use to supplement its own inadequate reserves. I forced his body to heal faster than would normally be humanly possible- the process was brutal and agonizingly quick- his body was protesting at this treatment. His breath came in stuttering gasps. The fat had melted from his cheeks and he had lost some muscle tone. But he was alive.

The necessities of war had meant that I'd had to develop some quick and nasty methods of healing my comrades in the heat of battle. It was my job to patch them up enough that they could carry on the fight, see it through to the finish. Or, if they were so grievously injured that they were incapable of fighting, I had to keep them alive until we could get them to a hospital. Near the end of the war I had so much combat experience that I could use any of the Healing spells in my repertoire almost as easily as breathing- wandlessly and wordlessly- I could probably do them in my sleep if I ever really needed to- and I spent a lot of my downtime in my lab, brewing various potions and remedies to supplement my knowledge of Healing spells. I was an excellent combat medic. I probably still am.

Nielssen was unconscious. He'd lost a lot of blood. I used a few diagnostic spells to check for broken bones and any complications. There was extensive trauma, much destruction and disruption of soft tissue. I could remove the bullet and fix the bones but he wouldn't be using that arm for a while. It was plain to me that he would be taking no more part in this fight.

I wiped the blood off my face and ministered to my head injury. I'll admit I didn't do a brilliant job. I still have a stripe of white hair sprouting from a nasty scar where the bullet rearranged the topography of my head. Fortunately, most of my hair is silvery grey, these days, so it's not too noticeable.

It was more important that I wasn't in pain anymore and that the wound wasn't causing me too much discomfort. I was able to Disapparate, take Nielssen back to base. I laid him down on a bed in our field hospital. He needed Blood-Replenishing Potions. I set up a drip so that he could receive them intravenously. I had to explain to the members of the task force who'd stayed behind to guard the base what had happened and what I was doing. Then, when I was satisfied that Nielssen was in stable condition, I was ready to rejoin the fight.

Mrlakenstein had enticed a handful of witches and wizards and even a few squibs to join him. Some of them were opportunists who wanted to join the winning side. Others were truly wretched, the dispossessed, outcasts from wizarding society, men and women who had a sob story to tell and a belief that this excused them from having to face up to the depraved crimes they'd committed. I had a theory that it was one of them who had nearly fatally shot Nielssen. This was confirmed when I returned to the battlefield and found Antonin Dolohov in a running firefight with a flabby, unhealthy-looking man dressed in a dilapidated muggle business suit, brandishing two automatic pistols. If the man had stood still long enough to take aim, he might have stood a chance of hitting Dolohov. As it was, Dolohov was too busy dodging the bullets to make more than a few perfunctory attempts to retaliate.

'_Expelliarmus_,' I said loudly, pointing my wand at the gunman. Both pistols flew out of his hands. There was just time for a look of surprise and incomprehension to appear on his face before Dolohov hit him with a Stunning Spell.

'I was wondering where you were, Tiho,' said Dolohov, grinning delightedly. 'Thought you might have gotten scared and gone home early.'

'Scared, me? You must be thinking of someone else,' I said. 'No, Nielssen was shot and I had to take him back to base.'

With that, Dolohov's playful mood evaporated; it was replaced with an expression of constipated solemnity. 'He's gonna be okay, right?'

'Yeah, fine,' I said. I vanished the pistols while Dolohov conjured ropes and made sure that our prisoner was securely tied up. We would interrogate him later, though I doubted that he knew anything of import.

'Good fight, this,' said Dolohov, 'best I've had in ages.'

He gave me a brief summary of what had happened while I'd been away. The task force had destroyed a host of Inferi and saved some muggles from the slaughter. Those muggles were now hiding from the fighting, keeping indoors and out of the way. A squad of Obliviators would come and deal with them later; that was what had happened after every other battle that had been witnessed by unfortunate muggles; it was a routine we knew well. Mínós Hrabal, Ana Kabotchnick and a few others were locked in combat with a huge, hideous monstrosity crafted from stolen human body parts while Antonin Dolohov and the rest of our able-bodied combatants were doing battle with some of Mrlakenstein's living servants.

Dolohov and I joined up with a few other members of the task force. I think Caspar Belhumeur was one of them. No, wait. I remember...

Caspar Belhumeur was already dead by that point, I think. _Znači..._

I really don't remember.

I liked him, though. Caspar Belhumeur was a great friend of mine. He was dashing and brave and startlingly quick-witted. So why can't I remember exactly when he died? I recall that he died in an earlier confrontation with Constantine Mausolus but then I remember a conversation I had with him and I think, 'no, that was afterwards! He couldn't have died then!'

I can't trust my memory. I remember those events in the wrong sequence.

Anyway, the next thing I remember, there was the noise of an explosion up ahead. The ground shuddered beneath my feet. The windows of nearby houses shattered. And gobbets of putrid meat rained down from the sky. The stench was... Have you ever breathed in the scent of a week-old corpse left outside to bloat in the sun? Well, if you have, what you smelled was a lovely perfume in comparison to the reek of the chunks of mangled carcass that showered all over me.

In a choked voice- I scarcely wanted to breathe- I spluttered, '_scourgify_.'

I used the Scouring Charm to clean myself up and, around me, my companions did the same. By unspoken agreement we all decided to run towards where the explosion had come from; we didn't know if Mínós or one of the others was injured or in need of some assistance; we didn't even know if they were still alive, so we went to find out.

There was a large crater and heaps of rubble scattered around. I saw the bodies of two of my teammates, but they were beyond help. I recognised Benjamin Bones. He had been gored to death by a massive sweep of horns, torn almost in half. The other body was so mangled, so pulverised, that I had no idea of who it had been. I had no time to search that body to find his or her identification badge. The battle wasn't over yet.

Ana Kabotchnick and Mínós Hrabal were facing off against Constantine Mausolus. I heard Mausolus speaking in a grandiose tone, saying something about how he he'd "lived for hundreds of years" and "slaughtered tens of thousands" and that modern-day witches and wizards were no more than "hollow imitations" of the Turkish "magi" who had brought an end to his reign of terror centuries ago. It was difficult to hear because Kabotchnick and Hrabal were in no mood to listen to his dramatic monologue; they were shooting a dazzling array of curses in his direction; he Disapparated several times to avoid being hit.

I had seen Constantine Mausolus several times before and each time I had sensed a subtle wrongness about him. His body was barely alive, barely human; everywhere he carried with him a lingering odour of decay. He wore an iron helmet that covered almost his entire face and neck except that there were slits for the eyes and mouth. He wore metal gauntlets to protect his hands. His body was swaddled in blood-red linen and his shroud was a black velvet cloak. He carried a wand that looked like it had been carved out of a human thigh bone.

Belhumeur signalled to me and Dolohov and the others that we should sneak around the field of battle and set up an Anti-Disapparition Jinx. If Mausolus was trapped and unable to Apparate away perhaps we'd be able to finish him off once and for all.

We started putting that plan into action, but somehow Mausolus must have realised the danger he was in. He stopped toying with his prey and became deadly serious, throwing Killing Curses at his opponents in an effort to end the fight quickly.

The standard incantation for the Killing Curse is '_Avada Kedavra'_, but Constantine Mausolus used '_Abbada ke dabra_' and it seemed to work perfectly well for him. At school, I was told that pronouncing the incantations correctly is vitally important when casting spells, but I've since realised that that was nonsense.

I've heard the incantation for the Summoning Charm, '_Accio'_, pronounced in many different ways: "ak-ee-oh", "ak-see-oh", "as-see-oh" and "at-chee-oh". It worked fine each and every time. The real reason why my teachers insisted on the correct pronunciation was because spellcasting is a very precise art and it requires a disciplined mind. Among novice witches and wizards, casual mispronunciations of incantations are usually evidence of sloppy thinking, and that can be disastrous. Just ask Wizard Baruffio.

Spells are magical constructs. They exist in some metaphysical realm where they can be accessed by the far-reaching minds of human beings: witches and wizards. You don't really need an incantation or hand gestures or a wand to cast a spell; they are useful tools and they make spellcasting an awful lot easier, but they are not necessary. As long as you make the connection with the spell in your mind and you fuel it with enough magical energy (which is difficult without the use of a wand) you should be able to cast it, no problem. It's entirely possible to cast a spell even if you don't know what effect it will have, so long as you know how to activate it. But, of course, only a fool would use a spell if he didn't know what it did.

Most of the incantations for the spells I know are derived from Latin words. Over time, those words have been mangled and mutated as tends to happen to any spoken language, but- and this is important- it doesn't matter. The state of mind that I'd need to achieve in order to cast any particular spell is just the same as it was centuries ago.

Belief is important, though. If you don't believe that you can cast a spell, then you probably can't. If you believe that your spells are more powerful if you use the correct Latin words- if for example, when casting the Pimple Jinx, you say '_Furunculus' _instead of '_Furnunculus'-_ then I'm sure you're right.

If, like Constantine Mausolus, you believe that the Killing Curse works better if you say the incantation in the original Chaldean, then... well...

'_Abbada ke dabra_,' said Constantine Mausolus, shooting a jet of green light at Mínós Hrabal who dodged nimbly out of the way.

'_Abbada ke dabra_,' he said again, but Ana Kabotchnick was no less agile than Mínós.

'_Abbada ke dabra_,' he said a third time, shooting a jet of green light at Caspar Belhumeur who had chosen precisely the wrong moment to move out from behind cover.

That was how Caspar Belhumeur died. I'm fairly sure. His lifeless body crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.

Our plan was shot to hell. Antonin Dolohov was bellowing like a bull, vowing revenge. He leapt into the fray, volleying Stunning Spells; he had thus far refrained from using the Killing Curse for fear of hitting one of his teammates. I moved to flank Mausolus from the other direction. I threw a blast of fire at his back. That was the spell I most commonly used to destroy the Inferi, and Constantine Mausolus was just another kind of reanimated corpse. Meanwhile, Mínós Hrabal had taken a miniaturized assault rifle out of his pocket- he waved a hand and it was restored to full size- it took him a moment to adjust his stance and get into position. When Dolohov and I had joined the battle we'd given him breathing space, time to ready his secondary weapon.

Mausolus evaded my fire blast. He turned, aiming his wand at Dolohov, but Ana Kabotchnick managed to slow him down for a crucial moment with a well-placed Impediment Jinx.

And then Constantine Mausolus's torso exploded in a hail of bullets. Evidently his new body was less resilient than the one he'd had centuries ago. He fell to his knees, spitting blood. Amazingly, he was still not dead; he was preserved by dark magic, even though his body was falling to bits.

His voice was an agonized groan. He snarled, 'my magic will sustain me until I-'

Mínós shot him again. He shot him a few more times just for good measure.

Constantine Mausolus let out a choked, gurgling breath. His wand hand twitched.

'Grab him _now!_' barked Mínós. He dived forward, tackling Mausolus onto the ground. I grabbed hold of Mausolus's arm and Dolohov must have had the same idea. Ana Kabotchnick was further away, but she had a better idea of what was about to happen; I didn't really have a clue, but I trusted Mínós with my life, so I obeyed his orders unthinkingly; Ana ran towards me, stretched out a hand and grabbed the collar of my shirt. Just in time.

Constantine Mausolus vanished. He Disapparated. And we Disapparated with him.

**End of Part One**

* * *

_Notes:_

_Originally, even before I had the idea for this story, I created the character of Mínós Hrabal_ _because the only Czech characters I could think of, in all of the English-language books, films and TV shows I've seen, were named 'Wenceslas'. I thought it was time to change that._

_Mrlakenstein was the name the Slovenian translator of the Harry Potter books gave to Voldemort. For this story, I wanted the main villain to create legions of twisted monsters out of human body parts, like an exaggerated version of Mary Kelly's Dr. Frankenstein. The name Mrlakenstein is reminiscent of Frankenstein, and I thought that this use of the name of another language's equivalent of Voldemort was nicely symbolic of the idea that maybe other countries in the Harry Potter world have had to deal with problems just as bad as Voldemort._

_In this story I've tried to fill in some backstory for Antonin Dolohov, before he turned bad. I'll provide some more commentary as to what I've been trying to achieve with his character at the end of Part Three._

_The task force sent to bring Mrlakenstein to justice was made up of a ragtag band of misfits, just like in any good war movie. It probably doesn't make much sense that Mínós Hrabal was put in charge, or that they sent an inexperienced youth like Tihomir Stojanović to the front line, but I'm trying not to think too hard about that. I'm just having fun with the concept._

_In his notes in 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard', Albus Dumbledore says that Necromancy is "a branch of magic that has never worked". I would like to present a counter-argument: in the world of the Harry Potter books, there are animated corpses known as Inferi, brought to life by dark magic; Zombies exist, although we never get to see one in the books; also, it's possible to bring a dead man back to life (if that man has put a fragment of his soul inside a Horcrux); and finally, it's possible to bring back the spirits of the dead (or, at least, _simulacra_ of the spirits of the dead) using the Resurrection Stone (hey, if Cadmus Peverell could do it, why can't other wizards learn how to do it?). So... what is it about Necromancy that "doesn't work", Professor Dumbledore?_

_I was inspired to write this story by my fellow fan-fiction writer, The King in Yellow, and his stories 'Hogwarts 1835' and 'Hogwarts 1940'. Well-written, splendidly researched, and utterly unlike any other Harry Potter fanfics I've ever seen, these stories explore what Hogwarts might have been like many years ago, long before the events of the Harry Potter books. I heartily recommend them to anyone looking for a good read._

_(I too have tried to explore a corner of the Harry Potter-'verse that doesn't appear in the books and hasn't shown up in fanfiction so far as I know. Sadly, my story isn't as well-researched or as well-polished as either 'Hogwarts 1835' or 'Hogwarts 1940'. Maybe someday...)_

_The joke about USA's Department of Magic being "that government which governs least" is a reference to Henry David Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'. I will probably get around to exploring a version of the wizarding world's USA in another of these short stories. Don't worry, you can rest assured I won't turn that story into an Anti-American rant. However, I dislike the tendency of some fanfic writers to turn the wizarding world's USA into a Marysuetopia where they look down on wizarding Britain for being so stupid and backward (and then Harry Potter decides that he hates living with the Dursleys and having to go to Hogwarts so he applies to go to an American wizarding school and stays there all-year-round and so everything is completely perfect). I'm a proud Englishman but I admit that my country has a lot of problems. I think that the USA looks like a wonderful place which- again- has a lot of problems. So, in my stories, both nations will have good and bad points. Fair enough, right?_

_There are many theories of where the Abracadabra incantation came from. Possibly it was originally a combination of the Hebrew words "_ab ben ruach acadosch_" meaning "father-son-holy spirit", or it might have been derived from the name of a Gnostic spirit, Abrasax, or from a corruption of the Aramaic phrase "_avra kehdabra_" meaning "I will create as I speak". I decided that the original version of the Avada Kedavra spell was the Chaldean _"abbada ke dabra" _which means "perish like the word". I think it makes the most sense, given the context._

_Please review! I need feedback! It nourishes me! It gives me inner strength!_


	2. Part Two

_I want to say thank you to Arpad Hrunta, King in Yellow, sarista wow and Kintatsu for writing such detailed and in-depth reviews. It seemed like the four of you had a great deal to say about the first chapter. I feel encouraged! Thank you!_

_I've shown my usual perfect sense of timing by posting the second part of a horror story during the run up to Christmas. Yeah, obviously a story about magical zombies is thematically appropriate to the season of peace and goodwill!_

_To all of my readers: I wish you a very merry Christmas or whatever you wish to celebrate! I hope you'll enjoy reading this story!_

* * *

**Part Two**

Apparition is an unpleasant mode of transport. It is hard to describe without resorting to unlikely similes. I once heard a man say that it felt "exactly" like he was being "strained through someone's bowels". I didn't like to ask why he seemed so confident of that fact.

I had Apparated many times before. I was used to it. But this time was different. I could feel Mausolus bucking and twisting, struggling to extricate himself. I gripped his arm as tightly as I could. My body was being crushed by a terrible pressure that seemed to come from every direction at once. I couldn't breathe. At the same time, I felt as if I was hurtling through the air at a terrific speed. I felt dizzy and nauseous and peculiarly weightless.

That sensation lasted for a few seconds. It seemed much longer. And then I hit the wall. There was a jarring impact and I was shaken loose. I fell and crashed into the cold stone floor, bloodied and broken. I don't know what happened after that. Consciousness slipped away from me.

When I came to, I was lying on a cold stone floor in a darkened hall. My whole body ached. It was a minute before I remembered who I was and what I was supposed to be doing. Slowly, I sat up and looked around. My teammates were no better off than I was. Mínós Hrabal was just now getting to his feet. I saw him take a few tottering steps, grimacing all the while. Ana Kabotchnick was lying on the floor, unmoving. The lower part of her left leg was a shapeless, useless lump. Antonin Dolohov was on his knees, retching. He looked very miserable, but he wasn't badly injured. Constantine Mausolus was nowhere to be seen.

I spat out shards of broken teeth. My nose was broken. It seemed likely that I was suffering from a concussion. I'd struck my head against the wall. I gingerly probed the jagged edge of one broken tooth with my tongue. The sensation was so excruciatingly unpleasant that I thought I was about to faint again.

I tried to speak. A hoarse rasp issued from my dry throat. 'What... what can I do? Let me help...'

I picked up my wand. I crawled over to where Ana Kabotchnick had fallen. I tried to heal her. Normally, fixing broken bones with magic is not difficult. However, a large part of the tibia in Ana's left leg had been completely smashed. I couldn't put it back together. There were too many scattered pieces that needed to be reunited. It was like the world's most complicated jigsaw puzzle. It would have been easier for me to simply vanish the bones in her left leg below the knee and then dose her with Skele-Gro. She would have re-grown those bones, good as new. I wish I could have done that.

Ana must have hit the floor with a great deal of force, landing all of her weight on her left leg. As if the smashed tibia weren't bad enough, the fibula in that leg was broken into several pieces and the femur also had snapped. Fortunately, I was able to fix the fibula and femur in a matter of seconds; they had broken quite cleanly, and all I needed to do was to fuse the broken ends together. While I was doing that, I wondered if my attempts to heal her were really having any effect. The damage was too much. I wanted to take her to a hospital, to somewhere I'd have the resources I'd need to heal her properly.

There were several large pouches attached to my belt. In those pouches, I kept all of the ointments and potions I thought I'd need (as well as some that I hoped I'd never need), some bandages, scissors, a thermometer, tweezers, gloves, a splint, a warm blanket and... well, I had a lot of things that I'd felt sure might one day be useful in saving someone's life.

I spent several minutes tying a splint to Ana's broken leg.

Mínós put his hand on my shoulder. 'Are you alright, Tiho?' he said.

I had been concentrating so intently that my own aches and hurts and the mewling demands of my weary, hungry body had seemed very far away. When Mínós spoke- and put his rough hand on my shoulder- it brought me back to painful awareness of myself and my surroundings. I looked up. I took a deep, ragged breath.

'W-where are we?' I asked.

'This is Mrlakenstein's castle,' said Mínós. He shrugged. 'At least I think so.'

'It must be,' said Dolohov. He had recovered to an extent; he was no longer puking in the corner. Still, he looked unhealthily pale and he was shivering a bit. 'Where else could it be?'

'I thought Mausolus would go running back to his master if we came close to killing him,' said Mínós. 'But...'

'You were willing to bet all of our lives on that,' Dolohov growled. 'Are you saying you were mistaken?'

It was terrible to see the expression of dread and self-doubt that flickered across Mínós's face. I looked away.

'Do either of you need healing?' I asked.

Mínós shook his head. I thought that Dolohov would refuse, but he stopped to consider for a moment.

'I feel dizzy and nauseous,' he admitted. 'You got anything to help with that?'

I gave him a potion that should alleviate the symptoms of what was probably motion sickness. After he had drank that, he seemed much refreshed, full of energy. He sneered at me. 'You look like hell, Tiho,' he said. 'What use will you be to the rest of us if you're falling-down injured?'

'Physician, heal yourself,' said Mínós.

'Yeah, that.'

It was the work of a moment for me to fix my broken nose and chipped teeth. I dosed myself with Pain Relieving Draught. As an afterthought, I gave the rest of the bottle to Mínós Hrabal. I could see that he was hurting, though he tried to deny it. He hadn't fooled me.

He murmured his thanks. He drank most of what was left and handed the bottle back to me.

'We need to retreat,' he said glumly. He sighed. 'We can come back another day, when we've rested and healed up. We'll be ready, then.'

'And by then Mrlakenstein will have put up anti-Apparition wards to stop us getting into his castle,' said Dolohov. He snarled. 'This might be the only chance we ever get.'

Mínós frowned. He looked at me. 'Tiho, will you take Ana back to base?'

'Yes, I'll do that,' I said, nodding. 'What will you do?'

'Dolohov and I will press the attack.' Mínós's expression was one of grim determination. 'He's right: this might be the only chance we'll ever get. We'd better make the most of it.'

'Let's finish this,' said Dolohov. He patted his pockets to make sure that he still had his wand and the rest of his equipment, rolled his shoulders and stretched, and then started pacing restlessly back and forth.

'I'll come back as soon as I can,' I promised. 'Good luck, both of you.'

'Same to you,' Dolohov said.

Mínós nodded.

'_Mobilicorpus,'_ I said, levitating Ana Kabotchnick's body a few inches off the floor. Her eyes flicked open. For how long had she been awake?

'I'll get you out of here,' I promised.

There was no way she'd be able to walk. She wouldn't be able to bear any weight on that leg. I'd have to carry her.

'It's a shame to end it like this,' she said breathily. She laughed, but there was a hysterical edge to it. 'Oh well. At least...'

I picked her up and draped her over my right shoulder. I held her by the hollows of her knees, her upper body behind me. It wasn't a particularly comfortable or dignified position for her, but at least it shouldn't damage her injured leg any more.

I tried to Disapparate. I couldn't. I felt something was blocking my way, pressing down on me, keeping me in one place. There was no way past it.

'What are you waiting for, Tiho?' said Mínós, a little impatiently, after a few seconds had passed.

'I can't do it,' I said, shaking my head. 'Someone's set up an Anti-Disapparition Jinx, I think.'

'What?' said Dolohov. 'Let me try!'

I handed Ana over to Dolohov. Ana looked indignant at being passed around like that.

Dolohov tried to Disapparate. He screwed up his eyes in an expression of fierce concentration. After a few moments he huffed a breath and said, 'no, Tiho's right. There's an Anti-Disapparition Jinx in the way.' He bared his teeth in a savage grimace. 'We're caught in a trap.'

'Put me down!' said Ana.

Hastily, but quite gently, Dolohov laid her on the floor. 'What do we do with her?' he said.

'Go on. Leave me here.'

'Mrlakenstein's henchmen will find and kill you,' said Mínós, frowning. 'We won't let that happen.'

'You think you have a choice?' Ana sighed. 'Don't waste time! Mrlakenstein is waiting for you.'

Mínós had a contemplative look on his face. 'I'm going to transfigure you into an animal,' he said, flourishing his wand. 'You won't need the use of all of your limbs.'

'What kind of animal?'

'A cat,' said Mínós. His voice took on a clipped, serious tone. 'Your orders are thus: run away, stay hidden out of sight until the battle is over. Do you have your wand?'

'Yes,' she said. She reached into the holster she had strapped to her wrist, pulled it out and showed it to him.

'Give it to me,' said Mínós, taking it. He handed it to me. 'Keep it safe, Tiho.'

I put Ana's wand into one of my belt pouches, wrapped it in a layer of bandages and cushioned it with the thick blanket I always kept in my medical kit, so it was insulated from any knocks and scrapes that might otherwise have damaged it.

'They are coming,' said Dolohov. He gestured in the direction of the door at one end of the hallway. 'Can you hear them?'

I listened and I realised that I could hear sounds that were instantly familiar to me; I heard awkward, shuffling footsteps. I recognised the shambolic gait of the Inferi. They were heading towards us.

'You ready, Tiho?' said Dolohov. His eyes gleamed. He gestured with his wand, miming the action of launching a deadly curse at one of Mrlakenstein's minions. He was gleefully anticipating the fight that was to come. 'It's time.'

I had no words. There was nothing left to say. I nodded and readied my wand.

Behind us, Mínós Hrabal waved his wand and uttered an incantation: '_In Feles Corpus Novaveris_.'

There was a soft 'pop'. I turned to look, but the transformation had taken place in less than the blink of an eye. Ana Kabotchnick had become a sleek black cat with a mangled back leg. Feebly, she dragged herself a little way across the floor and then collapsed.

'Well, that's all I can do,' said Mínós ruefully. 'Try to–'

The door burst open. Dolohov threw a Blasting Curse at the first of the Inferi to come stumbling into the room. I summoned a wall of flames to keep the others at bay. In my adrenaline-fuelled haste, I thought I saw dozens of Inferi crowding into the hallway, dead eyes shining with malevolence, reaching for us with claw-like hands. They would have ripped us to bloody shreds.

However, the wall of flames was as an impenetrable barrier to them. They shrank from it, they dared not approach. They were trapped on the other side, milling around uselessly while Dolohov and I had a leisurely time of picking them off one by one. I calmed down enough that I could see clearly that the Inferi numbered no more than seven, although at first my frantic imagination had multiplied that number until they became a vast, unstoppable horde. We defeated them easily. I was reassured.

'What's next?' said Dolohov, barking a laugh.

The door at the other end of the corridor splintered as something heavy slammed into it. When it was struck again, the door was torn from its hinges. It fell to the floor, in pieces. Mínós was there, ready for the fight. He shot a continuous stream of flame from his wand, like a dragon's breath. Behind that door, the Inferi had been pressed closely together, eager for the slaughter. None of them escaped the flames. They burned like dry firewood.

We were attacked by two more waves of Inferi before whoever was commanding Mrlakenstein's forces realised that we could not be worn down by sheer weight of numbers. To unarmed muggles and wizards who don't know any fire spells, Inferi can be terrifying opponents. But Mínós, Dolohov and I had spent the previous couple of years fighting and destroying them. They posed no threat to us.

'Is this it?' said Dolohov. 'I could hold out here all night.'

'Don't get complacent,' Mínós warned. 'We've only just begun.' With a wave of his wand he fixed the broken door at his end of the corridor, replacing it on its hinges. He sealed the door with the _Colloportus_ charm and a set of muggle door wedges. He explained that, if we moved on, he wanted advance warning of anything coming up behind us. Mrlakenstein's mortal servants could use _Alohomora_ to unlock the door, but they'd probably resort to blasting it open when they found that it still wouldn't budge.

He explained his plan to overcome the defences inside Mrlakenstein's castle. We would be methodical, searching each room in turn, disposing of obstacles and foes and sealing the doors to rooms we didn't immediately plan to enter. Mrlakenstein's forces had the advantage of superior numbers and the castle was large enough that, properly organised, they should have been able to attack us from several directions at once. Mínós's plan should make it more difficult for them to use their advantages against us. There were only three of us, but we were elite soldiers. We should be able to win, if we could divide Mrlakenstein's forces into small enough portions.

I agreed with the plan and asked if he had any more door wedges. He magically duplicated some for me. Dolohov was willing to go along with anything that was suggested. He was on edge, expecting another wave of enemies at any moment. He wanted to strike back.

We magically muffled our footsteps and moved on, through the open door. The next room was empty but there were three more doors leading from it. Mínós picked one of them randomly and we sealed the others. We went through several rooms before we encountered any of Mrlakenstein's minions. There were three of them: two men and a woman. I thought... well, they appeared plump and well-fed, but they nevertheless had a pinched, skeletal look about them. It was as if they'd been starved almost to death and hadn't fully recovered from the experience. They were armed with wands and muggle firearms. The woman had a shotgun. They were engaged in whispered conversation and didn't notice us in time.

Dolohov struck first. _'Avada Kedavra_,' he said. There was a flash of green light and one of the men was killed instantly, falling like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

'_Avada Kedavra_,' said Mínós. He had recognised the woman's shotgun as the most dangerous threat to the three of us in these tight quarters. So he killed her before she even realised what was going on.

'_Stupefy_,' I said, hurling a Stunning Spell at the other man. He fell like the others, but he was unconscious, not dead.

'You think we can afford mercy?' said Dolohov, eyes glinting. 'What will happen when he gets up again?'

I disarmed the stunned man; I vanished his pistol and smashed his wand under my boot heel. Then I summoned ropes to bind him securely. Mínós smashed the wands that had belonged to the dead man and woman. He vanished the dead man's pistol and was about to do the same to the shotgun, but he hesitated and decided to take it with him. He used a Cutting Charm to shorten the barrel.

'We shouldn't be leaving enemies alive behind us. It's too much of a risk,' said Dolohov. A pensive expression came over his face for a moment. 'Tiho, have you ever killed anyone?'

I shook my head. I'd destroyed dozens of Inferi, but I'd yet to kill a living person.

'Right now, that's a weakness,' said Dolohov, scowling. 'You–'

'Be quiet, Antonin,' said Mínós. He picked up the stunned, bound prisoner and stuffed him into a cupboard, magically locking him in. 'I trust Tiho to do what must be done.'

Dolohov fell silent for a while after that.

We came to a dead end. We turned around and went back to the last door we'd sealed. We unlocked it, removed the door wedge and looked inside. An empty room. Another dead end. We would have unsealed the next door, and the next, until we found the right way to go. But then we heard a muffled explosion close by. Mrlakenstein's minions had broken through one of the sealed doors. We'd left behind an obvious route for them to follow. In a few minutes, they would be upon us.

So we set up an ambush. In a room where there was plenty of worn, battered old furniture- I think it might once have been part of the servants' quarters- we hid behind cover and used Disillusionment Charms to make us almost invisible. We left a door open at each end of the room. Then we waited.

Six men entered the room, cautiously at first, looking around until they were sure that it was empty. They must have assumed that we were in the next room or somewhere even further along. They hurried towards the other door.

I don't know how many of them were killed by the blast from Mínós's shotgun, but the effects were devastating. I stunned two of the men. Dolohov stunned another; the fight was so hectic and confusing that he was hesitant to use lethal spells. After barely a moment, all of Mrlakenstein's minions were dead or stunned except for one man who'd been maimed. He was lying on his side, whimpering. Dolohov killed him. Dolohov checked the other bodies and made sure that they were all dead. I didn't say anything. I certainly didn't try to stop him.

It was a difficult situation. There were just three of us in a castle teeming with enemies. If we failed, the war against Mrlakenstein might be lost. Thousands of people would die horribly. This was our last chance of victory and we couldn't afford to waste it. I was beginning to believe that Dolohov was right. Killing was simply a safe and convenient solution to the problem of what to do with our defeated enemies. If the situation was reversed, they would show us no mercy. If they were captured and brought before an international court, they would either be executed or spend the rest of their lives in prison. What difference did it make?

I'm sure Dolohov thought I was a hypocrite, standing aside to let him do the dirty work.

Uneasily, I wondered where Ana was. I hadn't seen her since the first room; she had disappeared while we were fighting the hordes of Inferi. I hoped that she was still alive and safe. I wished she were with us, uninjured and in human form. She deserved to be part of the final battle. It was unfair...

We moved on. We found the hole where Mrlakenstein's minions had blasted through a sealed door. It seemed likely that we'd find Mrlakenstein and the remainder of his minions somewhere on the other side. By this point, we had destroyed a vast horde of Inferi and killed eight of Mrlakenstein's mortal servants (also, we had stashed one in a cupboard, tied up and unconscious). How many more would we have to fight? Had we already succeeded in reducing Mrlakenstein's army to a mere handful?

'It's possible,' said Mínós when I asked him what he thought. 'Don't get your hopes up, though. We haven't fought Mrlakenstein yet.'

Like any sensible commander, Mrlakenstein had always preferred to stay far away from the front lines and leave the fighting to his minions, but he was definitely a very powerful wizard. It wouldn't be easy to defeat him (although I doubted that he'd condescend to fight us if he had any other option).

'Mausolus is here, somewhere,' said Dolohov. He made a noise of disgust. 'It's too much to hope that he's still too injured to fight.'

'He's recovered from worse,' Mínós said, with a nod.

At least two more difficult battles awaited us. Knowing that, I felt much less optimistic.

We passed through many more rooms, carefully searching each one, locking and wedging shut the doors we didn't yet want to open. Now, when I look back, my memories of Mrlakenstein's castle seem hazy and dream-like. I was exhausted and more badly injured than I'd realised at first. I think if I'd stopped to rest I might have drifted off to sleep and never got up again. I was lost, stumbling through rooms that all seemed alike. I gave myself a headache trying to calculate exactly where we were in relation to some of the rooms we'd already explored. A great many buildings in the Wizarding World have been magically enlarged and extended, but the dimensions of Mrlakenstein's castle seemed particularly tortuous. It was like we were stuck inside an M. C. Escher painting.

There was a room where the walls were lined with cages. In those cages were some of the muggles that had been kidnapped from their homes in the most recent raids. They were starving, terrified and hopeless. We didn't have time to help them. We decided not to give them hope that might turn out to be false. So we shut the door and moved on to the next room. We'd come back when the battle was over.

In another room there were glass tanks and arcane machines of various types. The floor was crisscrossed with trailing wires.

'Is this eklecktricity?' said Dolohov, curiously. He bent down and examined the wires he'd nearly tripped over when he entered the room.

I shrugged. I didn't know what to say. To assuage my own curiosity, I wiped away the layer of grime that covered the outer surface of one of the glass tanks. I was mildly disgusted by what I saw inside: human brains floating in transparent yellow liquid. The brains appeared to have small tentacles sprouting from them.

'I'm sure this would be interesting if I knew what I was looking at,' I said, bemused. '_Ovaj_...'

Elsewhere in the room, Mínós let out a small, choked cry. A moment later, he chuckled unpleasantly and said, 'I shouldn't be surprised by this. I knew what Mrlakenstein was capable of.'

I walked over to see what he was so unnerved by. It was the severed head of a woman, hooked up to one of the machines. Somehow, she was still alive. Her eyelids fluttered open. She looked up at me beseechingly.

My wand was in my hand. Trembling, I pointed it at the woman. At that moment, I wanted her to die. I wanted her to die more than anything. It would be a mercy...

'_Avada Kedavra_,' I said. There was a flash of green light. And she died.

I sagged against the wall, breathing heavily. The machine continued to rumble and whine just as it had before, but now those noises meant nothing. She was dead. I had to keep telling myself that she was dead. I almost expected to look up and see that the machine had revived her, that she was alive again... that she would always be alive.

'Tiho? Are you alright?' said Mínós. He touched my shoulder, very gently.

'Yes,' I said.

Dolohov grabbed me and hugged me. It was quite unnerving. It was the first (and last) time I saw him exhibit compassion for someone else's suffering. 'We'll make a man out of you yet, Tiho,' he said gruffly.

'Thanks... I suppose,' I said.

There were other, similar machines nearby. One of them was a metal plinth on which there was a glass dome containing a still-beating heart. Attached to the heart were dozens of wires, needles and plastic tubes. Elsewhere, there was a plastic mannequin that appeared to be breathing. I didn't want to know how Mrlakenstein had achieved that effect, so I didn't bother to look. Several machines were built around severed human hands and feet, although I couldn't see what they were meant to do.

All of the machines were plugged into electrical sockets around the walls. We spent a little time going around the room unplugging them. It might have been a waste of time, but it gave me some peace of mind. I wondered where Mrlakenstein was getting all his electricity from, but we later found a room where there was a large electric generator, so I wasn't kept wondering for very long.

Eventually, we came to a large hall where Mrlakenstein's remaining minions had decided to make their last stand. There was a large open space and they were hidden behind barricades at the other end. I could see them poking their weapons over the top. We couldn't press the attack without making ourselves into easy targets, or so they believed. Even as I peered around the door, someone opened fire. I ducked hastily back into the corridor before I could get hit by a stray bullet.

I wasn't sure what to do, but Mínós had an idea. From some of the nearby rooms, Dolohov and I helped him carry a chandelier, a table and three chairs. We placed them near the door. Mínós transfigured the chandelier into a large vulture. It looked around with fierce yellow eyes.

'This is a weird plan,' I said with a half-hearted chuckle. 'But it might work.'

Mínós transfigured the table into a horse and the chairs into monkeys. He magically amplified his voice and screamed at the horse so that it would panic and bolt. It charged through the nearest open door, towards the barricade. It was greeted by a hail of bullets and more than a few lethal spells. When it died, it reverted to being a table, skidding across the floor until its legs broke off and it collapsed in several pieces, riddled with bullet holes. By then, Mínós had already ushered the other animals into the hall. Terrified, the monkeys dashed around the room, climbing and leaping over obstacles, screeching loudly. The vulture flapped into the air and flew up near the ceiling. One of Mrlakenstein's minions hit it with a sphere of flame. It blazed brilliantly for a second and then it was a chandelier again. There was a shower of crystal prisms and bits of twisted metal.

At the same time, we were putting the next stage of Mínós's plan into action. While Mrlakenstein's minions were distracted, Mínós, Dolohov and I moved into the doorway, pointing our wands at the barricade and shouting '_Confringo_!'

There was a massive explosion. I'd cast the most overpowered Blasting Curse I could produce. My teammates did the same. Afterwards, there wasn't much left of the barricade and it was scattered all over the room. There were cracks in the ceiling and scorch marks on the floor. The chair-monkeys were gone. Most of Mrlakenstein's remaining minions were dead or severely injured, buried in the debris.

Still, there were a few who tried to put up a fight. One of them was playing dead until I got too close. He sat up quickly, aimed his wand and hit me with a Blood Boiling Curse. He couldn't have been a very good wizard, or else he was too badly hurt for his spells to be anything more than a feeble effort. That curse should have killed me, but I didn't suffer anything worse than a high fever.

Dolohov reacted more quickly than I could. _'Avada Kedavra!_' he said. He didn't miss.

I was shaking uncontrollably. I dropped my wand. Mínós helped me to sit down. He picked up my wand and slipped it back into my wrist holster. 'Do you have a medicine for this?' he asked. 'Tell me where and I'll get it for you.'

I pointed to one of my belt pouches. 'In there,' I said. 'It...' My mind went blank. I had an idea of the medicine I wanted, but couldn't think what it was. 'It says "Willow Bark Elixir" on the bottle,' I said, at last.

For a few moments, I had no choice but to play the invalid until Mínós had dosed me with my medicine. I briefly felt a surge of panic when an Inferius came rampaging out of the wreckage. It had been damaged by the explosion; its right arm was hanging by a thread and its face looked as if it had been flayed. With fumbling fingers, I reached for my wand. I was too late.

With casual ease, Dolohov burnt the Inferius to ashes. I don't think he even looked up from where he was sitting.

'Saving my life again,' I said. 'That's getting to be a habit. Thanks.'

'It's nothing,' he said. He stood up and shifted impatiently. 'Shall we continue?'

I felt weary and sluggish. I drank some Invigoration Draught and felt better for it. 'Yes, I'm ready,' I said. 'Want some of this?'

I handed the vial to Dolohov. He took a mouthful and then passed it on to Mínós. They'd both need the extra energy in the battle that was to come. We could rest after we'd won. I was looking forward to sleeping for about a week.

Mínós decided that from then on I should stay back and leave the fighting to him and Dolohov. Partly, I think he was worried about my weakened state, but also he realised that it might be useful to have someone in reserve. They set off and I followed, a short distance away.

After that, it didn't take us long to find Mrlakenstein's inner sanctum. It was in one of the towers. There were two guards posted outside. Mínós shot wordless Killing curses at them before they could react. There were distinct thudding noises as they crumpled to the floor.

Dolohov winced. 'There goes our hope of taking the necromancer by surprise,' he muttered.

'He knows we're here already. I'm sure of it,' said Mínós. He put his wand in its holster, took his miniaturised assault rifle out of his pocket and spent a moment restoring it to full size and checking that it was in good working order.

'One way or the other, this is the end,' said Dolohov. He shivered, though whether it was in fear or excitement I could not tell. 'Good luck, both of you.'

**End of Part Two**

* * *

_At the beginning of this chapter, before he tries to Disapparate, I wanted to have Tiho say to Mínós, 'have fun storming the castle!' But it just didn't fit with the tone of this chapter, so I cut it out._

_I'm fairly sure that none of the incantations for Transfiguration spells were ever mentioned in the Harry Potter books. It makes sense that there should be some. JK Rowling skated over the issue. It wasn't important to her story._

_I wanted to come up with an example of the type of incantation that might be used for Transfiguration spells (in this chapter, the incantation that Mínós used to turn Ana into a cat). I did some research. After wrestling with the intricacies of Latin grammar, I finally came up with '_In Feles Corpus Novaveris_' (if I've translated it correctly, it should mean something like 'into a cat, your body will be made anew')._

_By chance, I came across another story on _fanfiction dot net_ (I googled the words "in feles") and found that someone else had had the same idea. In a '_Buffy the Vampire Slayer'_ and '_Stargate SG-1'_ crossover fic named 'Time for Change' by Starway Man and Nodaskip, Willow uses the incantation _'In Feles Corpus Transmuta'_ to transform someone into a white Persian cat. I was tempted to simply steal the words of this incantation. "Transmuta" is certainly a better word for an act of Transfiguration than "Novaveris" (which is the second person future perfect form of the latin verb "Novo", meaning 'to make anew, to renew, to refresh'). In this chapter, Mínós wishes that he could heal Ana, 'make her anew' as well as transforming her, hence "Novaveris"._

_My knowledge of Latin is minimal, so if anyone who knows better would like to tell me that I've gotten things badly wrong, I would be happy to accept criticism and to make some corrections._

_So yeah, if you enjoy crossover fics, I recommend 'Time for Change' by Starway Man and Nodaskip. It's decent stuff._

_Also, my friend _sarista wow_ has written a story named 'Harry Potter And The Girl With A Hundred Faces'. It's the story of eleven year old Harry Potter and his friendship with his grown-up cousin, the eponymous metamorphmagus, Tonks. It's charmingly sweet. Maybe you'd like to take a look?_

_For the first few chapters, _sarista_ wow has very generously given me a credit as a beta reader, which I don't deserve. Sure, I gave him a little constructive criticism, but no more than that._

_I've been away at university for several months. It's taken me until now to get around to writing the latest chapter of 'The Inferi Wars'. The third and final chapter should be up within the next few weeks. However, I probably won't get around to updating 'Broken Lives' until May of 2013. This is my final year at university and I'd like to get a good degree at the end of it._

_Please review!_


	3. Part Three

_And now, the third and final chapter...**  
**_

* * *

******Part Three**

Inside the tower I expected to see a throne room fit for a dark lord, luxuriously decorated with stolen gold and silver, fine paintings, tapestries and antique furniture looted from the wizarding families who had opposed Mrlakenstein during the early stages of the war. Instead, the room was sparsely decorated, with an uncarpeted floor, bare walls, mismatched chairs and tables that looked as though they had been borrowed from a nearby tavern. On every available surface there were piles of books, parchment and quills. I saw potion bottles, vials of blood and jars containing eyeballs, brains and other less identifiable body parts. In one corner there were several stuffed animals: a housecat, a bull (missing its horns), a stoat and a snake. For one heart-stopping moment, I thought that the cat was Ana, but... no, it was the wrong colour.

Mínós squeezed the trigger of his assault rifle, forcing the room's only occupant to take cover behind a powerful Shield Charm. He was a tall man dressed in faded red robes, wearing a silver mask that had been moulded on the face of someone young and handsome. Where his eyes should have been I saw only darkness. In his right hand he carried a wand which was... well, compared with Constantine Mausolus' wand which looked as though it had been carved out of bone, this wand was unremarkable.

'Is that Mrlakenstein?' said Dolohov, muttering the words out of the corner of his mouth. He threw a Killing Curse at the man, just in case.

I shook my head. I didn't know if this was truly Mrlakenstein. How could I? No one in the task force had ever seen him. I could only trust that all was as it seemed and that this was the final confrontation with our greatest enemy, the man responsible for countless atrocities and the deaths of thousands of people. If we were being deceived... how could we ever know for sure?

The red-robed man dodged the jet of green light that Dolohov had shot towards him. _'Mille Passuum_,' he said in a low voice, moving his wand in a circle.

Mínós dropped his assault rifle and hurled another Killing Curse. Sidling around the room, Dolohov threw several Killing Curses in swift succession. The air was filled with flashes of green light, too many for the red-robed man to dodge. They seemed to move awfully slowly, drifting through the air... Had Mrlakenstein discovered a way to slow time? I shifted slightly so that I could see the battle from a different angle. I realised that the Killing Curses were moving at their normal speed, but Mrlakenstein's spell had distorted the space between us. The room was magically expanded until it seemed to stretch for miles past the horizon. Looking at that vast emptiness made me feel dizzy and unbalanced, so I tilted my head again so I couldn't see the spatial distortions. The Killing Curses slowly faded away, unable to traverse that impossible distance. I watched as the last of them dissipated into nothingness.

'The Killing Curse is not perfect,' said Mrlakenstein. (Yes, by this time, I was sure that the red-robed man was Mrlakenstein. Who else could it be?) His voice echoed strangely; he was simultaneously far away and very close by. He spoke softly, in the tones of one imparting a lesson. 'It is easy to dodge, blocked by solid objects and it does not have unlimited range.'

'_Finite Incantatem,_' said Mínós. It had little effect, perhaps because the General Counter-Spell is another spell with a fairly limited range. Mínós tried again: '_Finite Incantatem!'_

'_Mille Passuum,_' said Mrlakenstein.

'Coward!' said Dolohov, inching crabwise towards the centre of the room. 'Stop messing around! Let's fight!'

'Or you could listen to what I have to say,' said Mrlakenstein with a wet gurgling laugh. He seemed intensely amused by the situation.

'Not interested,' said Mínós. He wordlessly cancelled the _Mille Passuum_ spell and threw yet another Killing Curse at Mrlakenstein.

I was standing behind my comrades, trying not to attract attention. The plan was that I should stay back in reserve, ready to step in at a crucial moment. Until then, I watched Mínós and Dolohov try to penetrate Mrlakenstein's defences. It seemed to me that I was watching something like an elaborate chess game, with each side taking it in turns to move.

Sensing an opportunity to bring this frustrating battle to a swift end, Dolohov darted forwards. Apparently deciding to diversify his tactics, he threw a Blasting Curse. Mrlakenstein blocked it with a Shield Charm. Behind him, Mínós was moving in to take advantage of the distraction. He threw a lance of flame that shattered Mrlakenstein's shield and set fire to his robes.

'_Avada Ked_–'

'_Infinitus Est,_' said Mrlakenstein.

My vision blurred. I could only hear garbled voices. It seemed that the room had grown to enormous size. In the distance, I saw Mínós locked in combat with Mrlakenstein. Just a few steps in front of me, I saw Mínós wielding his assault rifle. I saw Mínós on his knees, struggling to rise. I saw Mínós everywhere. It was like a fractured mirror in which I could see hundreds of reflections but they all looked different.

Then I saw Dolohov. He was setting fire to a pile of books, a savage snarl on his face. Elsewhere, he was fighting a furious duel, throwing Killing Curse after Killing Curse. He was sprawled on the floor like a ragdoll, dead or dying. He fought Mrlakenstein, Mausolus and the Inferi. He was wearing black robes and a skull mask. I saw him fight hundreds of battles, though I caught barely a glimpse of each. They all seemed to blur into one.

I saw myself at different stages of my life: as a young boy at my aunt and uncle's house, as a soldier fighting the Inferi, as a middle-aged man brewing potions in a laboratory and as a tired old man preparing for one last, desperate battle...

I died. I was killed by Sadko Krichevskiy. I was torn to shreds by the Inferi. My soul was ripped from my body by a Killing Curse. I died of a wasting disease. I was eaten by monsters. I died so many times that I stopped being shocked by it.

I shut my eyes. Mrlakenstein was toying with me; the visions were meaningless. I put one foot in front of the other and tried to walk. I felt my foot connect with something, but I was so disoriented that I could hardly tell the difference between up and down. My limbs felt like they belonged to someone else.

It took me a moment to realise that I had toppled over. I was lying on the floor, fading in and out of consciousness. Even the pain seemed very far away...

* * *

At last, I had reached Mrlakenstein's tower room. I flung open the door, dreading what I would see inside. Was I too late?

The room looked as though a tornado had whipped through it, scattering all of Mrlakenstein's scholarly clutter. In one corner there were the charred remains of a large animal (and, next to it, there several more stuffed animals, which I thought peculiar. I had not imagined Mrlakenstein as the kind of man to indulge in any kind of hobby, even taxidermy). In the middle of the room, there was a red-robed man wearing a silver mask. Mínós Hrabal lay dead at his feet. But Dolohov was still fighting, spitting curses and lashing out with blasts of fire. It was plain that he was overmatched.

'_Crucio_,' said Mrlakenstein.

Wracked by spasms of pain, Dolohov fell to his knees. A scream of agony and frustration burst from his throat.

'I expected more from you,' said Mrlakenstein. He looked up at me. His silver mask was still smiling faintly as always, but the man behind it was inscrutable. 'All of you.'

'W-we're not here to p-put on a show, you maniac!' said Dolohov, trembling. 'We're here t-to bring you to justice!'

'Justice?' said Mrlakenstein as if he were unfamiliar with the word. 'Hmm...'

'You have committed many unspeakable crimes, Mrlakenstein,' I said. I don't know why I spoke or why I felt the need to point out the blindingly obvious. I felt almost as if I had slipped into a dream. None of this seemed real to me. 'You have commanded the deaths of thousands of men, women and children. You have turned people into undead monsters. You–'

Mrlakenstein gazed up at the ceiling. 'There are far too many worthless people in this world. They're like a plague, ravaging and consuming and breeding swarms of equally worthless children.' He shook his head. 'At least I put some of them to good use in my researches.'

I suddenly noticed that Dolohov had passed out on the floor. I was alone against Mrlakenstein.

'You must be stopped,' I said defiantly.

'Are _you_ going to stop me?' said Mrlakenstein. I would guess that he was sneering- his voice was laced with contempt- but I couldn't see his face behind the mask.

'If I can,' I said. I had my wand in my hand. There was no time for thought. I must kill Mrlakenstein or die in the attempt.

'_Avada Kedavra!_'

* * *

I was behind Dolohov when he blasted open the door. Inside the tower I expected to see a throne room fit for a dark lord, but instead... I had a strange feeling that this whole situation was something I'd already experienced. I couldn't remember...

'So you're finally here,' said Mrlakenstein in a satisfied voice. 'I expect you're wondering why I've allowed you to come this far.'

'The thought had occurred to me,' I said cautiously. Mrlakenstein seemed to want to talk and I was in no mood to listen, so I glanced around at my comrades to see if they were ready to press the attack. Neither of them moved. It seemed like they were frozen in place.

'Most men are not great and never achieve greatness,' said Mrlakenstein. He seemed unconcerned that I was obviously plotting to kill him. 'They are content to live dull, humdrum lives, just as their ancestors did for countless years. But you are different. You have been tempered by the fires of war, just as extreme heat and pressure turns common graphite into diamonds. I have made you into something more than you were born to be. You are one of my proudest creations.'

'Me?' I said disbelievingly.

'Yes,' said Mrlakenstein. He pointed to Dolohov and Mínós as well. 'You three. I made you.'

* * *

I kicked open the door to Mrlakenstein's tower room. I don't know what I expected to see inside. My mind was blank.

Mrlakenstein was waiting for me. He put down the book he was reading, negligently dropped it onto the pile. 'Ahh, my puppet, you have returned to me,' he said in a voice that oozed smugness.

'I'm here to... I'm here...' I wanted to tell him that I was going to kill him, but the words stuck in my throat. 'I'm no one's puppet,' I said forcefully, as if saying it could make it true. 'I'm here by my own choice.'

'Who are you?' said Mrlakenstein, jabbing an accusing finger at me. 'Where did you come from? How did you get here?'

'I–' I couldn't answer those questions. I wasn't sure of who I was or what I was doing.

'Look at yourself. You _are_ a puppet. That's all you have ever been.'

I stared down at my hands, examined them so closely that I could see every whorl and callus. My hands were marvellously detailed, but they were the hands of a doll, carved out of wood and polished to a warm, nut-brown sheen. I was a life-size, fully articulated mannequin. I had no real past, just fading memories; I was a man not born but whittled. There were strings controlling my every movement. Mrlakenstein was right. I was a puppet.

It was so ridiculous, I burst out laughing.

'What? What's so funny?' said Mrlakenstein.

'I didn't realise you were so literal-minded,' I said, still giggling uncontrollably. I leaned against the wall for support. My sides ached with laughter and I couldn't breathe.

The last thing I saw was a flash of green light.

* * *

I found myself drifting off to sleep. I was so tired... Guiltily, I shook myself awake. Someone was talking in a low, earnest voice. I listened, though my mind was bleary and fogged with sleep. I knew it was important.

'–my search for immortality,' said Mrlakenstein. 'Like many others, I had the idea that there was little I could not achieve if I lived for more than one lifetime. I wish that I had enough time to learn everything that I wish to know. So I studied the various methods that others had used to become immortal. Several dark lords have made Horcruxes. Many alchemists have tried to make a Philosopher's Stone, but only Nicolas Flamel is known to have succeeded. There are supposed to be other methods, but those were the ones I could study, that I knew to be reliable. I resurrected Constantine Mausolus so that I could examine the side effects of immortality. You've fought against him, haven't you? What did you think of him?'

'He's arrogant. Proud and boastful,' I said. I felt wholly dispassionate and disinterested, almost as if I was still dreaming. 'He's a powerful wizard, but he doesn't use his power wisely. He has no caution.'

'Yes, Mausolus has lived many lifetimes, but he is just the same as he always was, making the same mistakes, unable to exceed or even equal the achievements of his youth. By splitting his soul he released himself from the tedious cycle of life, death and reproduction. He has preserved himself as he was centuries ago, but he is incapable of being anything else. He does not change; without change, there can be no progress. For him, immortality has meant stagnation. The same is true of Nicolas Flamel.'

'Didn't he make some new discoveries in alchemy earlier this century? Working in partnership with Albus Dumbledore–'

'Flamel possesses hundreds of years of accumulated knowledge. He can give splendid advice and guidance to any aspiring alchemist. However, I have it on good authority that, while they were partners, it was Dumbledore who did most of the work while Flamel was little more than a walking reference guide. No, centuries have passed since the last time Flamel achieved anything by his own merit. Of course, the Philosopher's Stone is the pinnacle of the alchemist's art. It cannot be improved or surpassed. Flamel has already reached the top of the greasy pole; there is nowhere for him to go but down.'

'What does that mean for you? Do you still seek immortality?'

'I need more time,' said Mrlakenstein. 'There's so much I haven't yet done. By becoming immortal, I would lose my will to succeed. Oh, I don't know that for sure, but it's a theory that fits the available evidence.' He shook his head in frustration. 'What is the point of my becoming immortal if it means I'll lose sight of the reason _why_ I wanted to be immortal? Ahh... It is the knowledge that death will come for me someday that drives me onwards, fuels my desire to know, to learn and to do. Without it, I could not have achieved such greatness.'

'Death is closer than you think,' I said, trying to sound threatening. I couldn't shake off the dull, lassitudinous state I was in.

'In order to progress, I must change. Mrlakenstein must die,' said Mrlakenstein.

* * *

I was lying half-buried in a pile of books, sheets of parchment and empty potion bottles. Blood was dripping from the many wounds I'd suffered. I was cold and I couldn't move. There wasn't much life left in my shattered body. The only thing I could do was stare at the wall and wait for the end.

Mínós charged into the room, dismay spread over his face. 'Tiho!' he cried. 'Antonin!'

I tried to speak, but he couldn't hear me.

'I killed them,' said Mrlakenstein, 'Just as I will kill you, Teutamides.' He laughed harshly. 'What else did you expect? Did you really think your contemptible little group could defeat the world's mightiest dark wizard?'

'You're not the mightiest dark wizard of this or any other age,' said Mínós in tones of frigid politeness. Rage had turned him into a man of ice. 'And my name is Mínós, not Teutamides.'

'Are you sure? It fits you well.'

Mínós ignored Mrlakenstein's cryptic statement. He raised his wand. I thought he would throw a Killing Curse, but instead he shook his head, muttering, 'We can do better than this. Let's start again.'

My vision faded. Everything went dark.

* * *

Heat. An acrid, burning stench. The room filled with smoke. I heard angry shouts, bangs, crashes.

'No more of this!' said Dolohov. 'I've had enough of these mind games, these... illusions, whatever they are! Fight me, damn it!' Swirling flames issued from his wand, setting light to a desk and one of the book piles, greedily consuming scrap parchment and spilled potions residue, growing hotter and more intense.

'Are you so eager to die?' said Mrlakenstein, looming through the smoke. The hem of his robe had caught fire.

Dolohov smirked. He launched another blast of fire, this one aimed at Mrlakenstein's collection of stuffed animals.

A chill wind blew through the room. Most of the flames were snuffed out. Dolohov was picked up and smashed against the wall. He fell in a crumpled heap and did not move again.

I don't know where I was before that. It was as if I suddenly materialized out of nowhere. Reflexively, I leapt into action, yelling, '_Avada Kedavra!_'

Mrlakenstein easily dodged the bolt of green light I sent his way. I was hard-pressed to avoid his retaliatory volley. I'm sure I would have died if Mínós hadn't suddenly appeared in front of me. '_Mille Passuum_,' he said. His first attempt at casting the spell wasn't as effective as when Mrlakenstein had used it, but it gave us time to move out of the killing zone.

'Magnificent,' Mrlakenstein breathed. 'You are worthy.'

'Get Dolohov out of here,' Mínós whispered in my ear. 'Leave this to me.'

I nodded. Part of the room was still on fire and Dolohov's body was perilously close to the flames. I'd save him if I could. 'I'll be back,' I promised. But Mínós had already thrown himself into the fray, fighting so fiercely that Mrlakenstein was forced to step back.

Bending down to examine Dolohov, I could see he'd broken a number of bones. I didn't want him to exacerbate his injuries if he regained consciousness and tried to move. _'Petrificus Totalus_,' I said, using a slightly modified version of the spell that wouldn't cause his arms and legs to snap together. I decided to move him out of the room, onto the landing. He'd be safer there. _'Mobilicorpus_,' I said, levitating him.

Stepping through the door, I nearly tripped over the body of one of the guards Mínós had killed. I'd need more space to make Dolohov comfortable and give him the medical attention he needed, so I transfigured the two dead bodies into leather suitcases which I could easily push out of the way. Transfiguration is not a skill I've specialised in, but I consider myself reasonably competent. However, I'd done a poor job on one of the suitcases; it was obviously made of flayed human flesh, with eyes, nostrils and mouth crudely sewn up. I shuddered to see it. Although... even then, it seemed odd to me that I was so squeamish about some things. After all the things I'd done...

I took a blanket out of my pouch, magically enlarged it and laid it on the floor. I put Dolohov down carefully on top of it. Then I set to work healing his injuries. Some of the broken bones I could fix. Others were so shattered that I'd need to vanish and regrow them. For that, I'd have to transport him back to the field hospital. I was so focussed on my work that I didn't notice Constantine Mausolus ascend the top of the stairs.

'_Crucio_,' he said. I fell, screaming in agony, thrashing about like a fish. The pain was so blindingly horrible that I wasn't aware of anything else. Mausolus used the Cruciatus Curse again and again, relishing the opportunity to torture one of his hated enemies.

He was attacked by a small, nimble creature that climbed up on his back, hissing and spitting and trying to rip his cloak to shreds. He reached behind him and tried to grab hold of it, but it quickly let go, darted around in front of him and clawed his leg. I watched dazedly. It took me a few moments to come back to reality. I wouldn't have had that time if Mausolus hadn't been trying to defend himself from a small black cat with an injured leg.

It had been hours since last I'd seen Ana. I had thought of her a few times, wondering if she was alright. And now she had saved me. She moved with surprising speed and agility, more than I would have thought possible considering how badly her leg had been damaged. Mausolus was extremely careless with the Killing Curses he threw at her. It was only luck that saved me and Dolohov from being hit.

Ana dashed this way and that, feinting at Mausolus, circling around him, doing everything she could to divert his attention. But she was tired and injured. She couldn't last forever. She stumbled.

'_Locomotor Mortis_,' said Mausolus, paralysing her legs. He uttered a sigh of satisfaction. _'Abbada ke dabra._'

'_Conjunctivitis!_' I cried. I was _so_ sick of watching my friends die in front of me. _'Ossio Dispersimus_!'

The Deboning spell is only taught to qualified Healers. Its intended use is the removal of bone fragments so that a shattered bone can be safely regrown. However, it is easy to imagine the ill uses a dark wizard might put it to. I used it to vanish the bones in Mausolus' right arm. He cried out in alarm as his arm flopped about uselessly. His wand clattered to the floor. Panicked, he threw himself onto the floor, groping for his wand but unable to find it.

'_Ossio Dispersimus_,' I said again, vanishing the bones in his other arm. Just for good measure, I vanished the bones in his legs, leaving him helpless, face-down on the floor.

'Kill me,' he moaned. 'Please kill me.'

'You killed one of my dearest friends,' I said. I picked up the tiny dead cat, cradled it in my arms. For a moment, I wondered if I was still trapped inside Mrlakenstein's _Infinitus Est_ spell. Was this another false reality that I could reject? I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that I'd just burst through the door and I was about to confront Mrlakenstein. If I concentrated hard, I could almost believe that it was so. But then I opened my eyes and Ana was still dead. I wanted to weep. 'What right do you have to ask anything of me?'

I wouldn't have been able to kill Mausolus even if I'd wanted to. His Horcrux was still intact. He was immortal. Thinking about that, I was tempted to vanish all of the bones in his body and leave him as a quivering mass of flesh. Would his Horcrux eventually allow him to regrow his bones, or would he be stuck like that for eternity? I wanted him to suffer. It was cruel of me, but Constantine Mausolus had taught me cruelty, just as Mrlakenstein had taught me how to kill. I am what they made me into.

I hit Mausolus with a Stunning Spell. His sobbing was getting on my nerves and anyway I wasn't entirely sure that he couldn't still cast wandless spells (though it seemed likely that he would already have used them if he could). I didn't want him getting away. I was going to bring him to justice.

Regretfully, I put Ana down next to Dolohov. I examined Dolohov to make sure I hadn't hurt him while I was thrashing about. I couldn't see that I had made his injuries any worse.

Then I turned and ran back into the room where Mínós was no longer fighting Mrlakenstein. It had been a while since I'd heard any noise from that room, so I was dreading what I might see.

The fire had been doused. Mínós was propped up against the wall. His eyes were shut and he was breathing heavily. He'd been hit with a Cutting Curse; there was a deep wound in his side and the floor around him was slick with blood. I walked over to him, glancing all around, wary of a trap. I wasn't ambushed, so I began to heal Mínós' wounds. He soon regained consciousness.

'It is finished,' he croaked. 'Mrlakenstein is dead.'

I gave him a Blood-Replenishing Potion to drink. He showed me Mrlakenstein's charred corpse. He'd finally killed Mrlakenstein with the fire spell that had been his favourite means of destroying Inferi. The corpse was so badly burnt that it was barely recognisable as human. Mrlakenstein's silver mask had partially melted and his robes had been reduced to a few scraps. There was a chain around his neck and on the end of that chain there was a ring set with an amethyst. I recognised it from the stories: it was Mausolus' Horcrux.

For a moment, I was gripped by an awful suspicion. The corpse could have belonged to anyone. Mrlakenstein had warped time and space with his _Infinitus Est_ spell, trapping us in a maze of a myriad different possibilities until... somehow, we had our victory. I was so exhausted and sick of war that I desperately wanted to believe that it was all over, that the deaths of so many of my friends had not been in vain and that the dark lord was defeated forever. But was that really what happened? Did Mínós really defeat him, or was it some kind of trick? Perhaps the _Infinitus Est_ spell was meant to confuse us, push us past the point of desperation, so that when it seemed like we'd won we would be too relieved to ask too many questions. Had the real Mrlakenstein escaped, leaving behind the corpse of one of his victims dressed up in red robes and a silver mask? Was he now free to continue his researches elsewhere, without interference?

Something else occurred to me as I tried to sort out my tangled memories of what happened when Mrlakenstein cast _Infinitus Est_. He had told me that he must "change" and that "Mrlakenstein must die". Did that mean he was now pretending to be someone else? Why would he tell me that? Why would he tell me anything at all?

The war was over. Soon, the entire wizarding world would rejoice in Mrlakenstein's death. I hoped that he really was dead. But if he wasn't, what could I do about it?

I sighed. This didn't feel like a victory to me. 'Ana's dead,' I said.

'What? When did that happen?' said Mínós.

'Mausolus attacked me while I was healing Dolohov. She saved me.'

'Impressive. I always admired her courage,' said Mínós. He paused. 'What happened to Mausolus?'

'I deboned his arms and legs, blinded and stunned him,' I said. I wasn't in the mood to make jokes about how I'd "disarmed" Mausolus, so instead I spoke with brutal honesty.

Mínós blinked. He looked at me with an expression of surprise. After a moment, he said, 'Well... We should go see how he's getting on.'

I took the ring and the chain from around Mrlakenstein's neck (though I was careful not to touch the ring, only holding it by the chain). 'This is Mausolus' Horcrux,' I said. 'We should take it with us.'

We walked out onto the landing. Mínós looked askance at the two leather suitcases that hadn't been there before. 'Your handiwork, Tiho?' he said, raising an eyebrow.

I nodded. I checked that Mausolus was still stunned. I hit him with another Stunning Spell, just in case.

Mínós cancelled the spell that had turned Ana into a cat. Her body reverted to that of a human being. In death, she was smaller than I remembered. She was a tall woman, but in my mind's eye she had always appeared even taller because she had such a powerful physical presence. I was in awe of her. She saved my life dozens of times. In the end, she died for me. I wish...

Ana's eyes were open, glassy and staring. I closed them for her so that it looked almost as if she were sleeping. I bent down to inspect her injured leg. I had been surprised by how nimble she was, as a cat. I discovered the reason for that: some of the damage had been miraculously healed, the bones knitting back into place. I hadn't done that. Was it a side-effect of Mínós' transfiguration spell? I remembered the incantation he had used: _In Feles Corpus Novaveris_. It might be worth further investigation.

We checked that the Anti-Disapparition Jinx was gone. I Apparated to the field hospital with Dolohov. As soon as returned, I had to fend off questions from my fellow Healers and some of my comrades who'd been wounded in the battle earlier that day; I persuaded them to leave me alone until I'd healed Dolohov as well as I reasonably could. However, I was relieved to see that Sivard Nielssen was making a swift recovery. Mínós Apparated to the Task Force headquarters with Mausolus in tow. He first made sure that Mausolus' armless, legless body was locked up in a secure holding cell. Also, he told everyone he met that Mrlakenstein was dead and the war was over. This news was received with such delight that the Task Force headquarters immediately became a scene of such riotous celebration that nobody there got any sleep that night.

I went back to Mausolus' castle to retrieve Ana's body. While I was there, I mooched around the tower room, kicking through piles of ash. For at least ten minutes, I stared at Mrlakenstein's corpse, trying to convince myself that it was really him. I went to look closely at the stuffed animals in the corner. The stoat was so badly burnt that it was barely recognisable. I didn't see the cat anywhere. The bull had been scorched by the blaze, but it was still an impressive sight. I couldn't see any damage to the snake. It was a large, bronze-coloured creature: an Aesculapian Snake, unless I miss my guess.

There was a book on the floor, lying amidst the charred embers. A few of the words on the page were still legible: _"is but a vessel for the soul. To free the soul from the confines of the body..."_ Those words caught my interest. I picked up the book, blowing away the soot. On the cover there were runes of protection from fire. Beneath the layers of ash, the book was remarkably intact. I took it with me.

I didn't delay much longer after that. I was fairly sure that there were none of Mrlakenstein's minions left in the castle, but I was getting increasingly anxious, jumping at shadows. I remembered that I'd seen a room where Mrlakenstein's muggle prisoners were kept in cages, but I didn't trust that I could find my way back there. The castle might still hold terrible secrets. I might get lost and run into danger if I went on my own. I vowed I'd come back when I could bring other members of the Task Force. We'd properly search the castle as soon as we dealt with the Fidelius Charm preventing people from getting in (at the time, as far as I knew, the castle was sealed off to everyone except me, Mínós and Mausolus). I picked up Ana's body and took her back to headquarters.

Mausolus was only too glad to reveal the location of Mrlakenstein's castle (thus allowing other members of the Task Force to bypass the Fidelius Charm) in return for a dose of Skele-Gro. The Task Force then stormed the castle, freed the muggles that were being held prisoner and destroyed some dangerous mutated monsters that were lurking in parts of the castle that Mínós, Dolohov and I hadn't explored. The muggles were handed over to the Serbian and Transylvanian ministries of magic who had the job of Obliviating them, rehabilitating them and giving a plausible explanation for why they were missing their memories of the past few weeks. The Task Force secured the castle and its contents so that the International Confederation of Wizards could decide what to do with it; the International Confederation of Wizards spent years trying to reach an agreement as to who should get a share of the loot and how it should be divided up. In the meantime, scholars and sages from around the world flocked to the castle hoping to study the products of Mrlakenstein's twisted brand of genius.

Constantine Mausolus was tried before an international court. There was little that anyone could say in his defence. He had committed innumerable crimes across multiple lifetimes. And so, his Horcrux was destroyed and he was sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss. I have never heard of a more total destruction of a person. He deserved it, but... it makes me uneasy. I am responsible for what happened to him; after he killed Ana, I incapacitated him and kept him alive so that he could face 'justice'. Did I do right? Was that justice?

Along with almost everyone else in what was left of the Task Force, I attended Ana's funeral. It was on a beautiful sunny day in her hometown near Boston, Massachusetts. I resented the weather for its failure to appropriately reflect my mood. Even with our attendance, the funeral was not a large one. There was Ana's family, a few family friends and us. Ana's parents were quiet, serious people. I got the feeling that they hadn't approved of their daughter's decision to become a soldier. I told them how much I had admired and respected Ana, how I owed my life to her. They looked at me as if to say that they wished I had died and that Ana had survived in my place. I almost found myself agreeing with them. I could offer them no comfort.

For a while afterwards, Mínós, Dolohov and I enjoyed a certain amount of fame and hero-worship as the ones who had defeated the Dark Lord Mrlakenstein. Well, perhaps "enjoyed" is the wrong word. Dolohov was the only one who really enjoyed himself. He liked being a hero, telling people of the brave things he'd done and having them hang on to his every word. He liked being surrounded by gullible young women and he liked it when other people wanted to buy him drinks to reward him for his heroism. He had been unconscious for the last part of the battle with Mrlakenstein and when I was ambushed by Constantine Mausolus, so his version of events was highly embellished and bore little resemblance to what had actually happened. But I didn't mind him hogging the limelight. I didn't want fame; I was still haunted by the suspicion that Mrlakenstein had orchestrated the events of that final confrontation so that he got exactly what he wanted. I couldn't bear the thought of being lauded for a victory that wasn't real.

Mínós was the man who killed Mrlakenstein. It made him a legend. Before the war, he had already garnered a small amount of fame, as a monster hunter and a boy hero in the war against Grindelwald, but Mrlakenstein's death was his crowning achievement. He was awarded so many medals that if he'd tried to wear all of them at once he'd have been decorated like a Christmas tree. However, he didn't care about fame or reward except to the extent that it helped him continue his never-ending battle against the darkness. He was never satisfied with victory; there was always more to be done. His true goal was unattainable. A few months after the Inferi Wars, he decided he'd rested for long enough. He went back to hunting monsters. I've not seen him since. I heard that he died in battle against a Nundu that had wiped out an entire village. I grieved for him. But perhaps I had no reason to grieve; recently, I heard that he was still alive and that he'd chased a murderous Barghest halfway across Europe. If you see him, tell him I want to hear that story. I look forward to seeing him again.

Dolohov soon got bored with peacetime. His fame lasted only a couple of years, if that. Most people were quick to forget about Mrlakenstein. They moved on with their lives. But Dolohov behaved as if he expected to be a celebrated hero for the rest of his life. He ran out of money and his creditors lost patience with him. I gave him money a few times. He promised he'd pay me back, but I didn't really expect him to. The problem was that he had few marketable skills that didn't involve violence, so he became hired muscle and worked for anyone who was willing to pay. He became embroiled in the affairs of criminal gangs. Eventually he was arrested and sent to Nurmengard prison for a number of years.

I continued to study the art of Healing, honing my skills and inventing new spells and potions. There was much I wanted to learn. During the war I'd been made painfully aware of the fact that, in certain areas, my knowledge was lamentably sparse. I spent a number of years studying medicine at a muggle university; it took me some time to adjust to a muggle way of thinking, but I managed it before it became a problem. I'm a qualified medical practitioner, though it's been years since last I worked as a muggle physician.

Dolohov was appalled when he found out. A few years after he was released from prison, he invited me to lunch at a restaurant in Diagon Alley. I hadn't known that he was living in England, but I was glad that he was doing well for himself. He was quite pale and gaunt, but he was smartly dressed and he insisted on paying for the food, so I thought nothing of it. We exchanged a few pleasantries and sat down to eat. Partway through the meal, he started talking about the Death Eaters and the great work they were doing protecting the British wizarding world from corrupting muggle influences. As he spoke, his eyes shone with fervour. By then, the Death Eaters had been active for a number of years, but they were widely believed to be nothing more than a small group of pure-blood fanatics. Several more years would pass before the start of the "First Wizarding War" (by the way, I think it's inaccurate as well as arrogant that the British call it by that name). The Death Eaters hadn't yet committed the despicable crimes for which they would become so feared and hated. Still, I didn't like what I'd heard of the Death Eaters and the "traditional values" they upheld. I was worried about my friend and what he was getting into.

'You should join us, Tiho,' he said, his eyes shining with fervour. 'We need more men like you.'

I told him that I didn't agree with the Death Eaters' ideology. Seeing no way to avoid the subject, I told him what I'd been doing for the past five years. He was shocked speechless for a moment.

'Why? Why did you–?' He shook his head in disbelief. 'Why would you waste your time like that? What do muggles know about healing?'

'Muggles have invented many ingenious ways to treat disease and injury. We can learn from them,' I said. 'There are some diseases that can't be healed with magic. With muggle science–'

'Oh yeah, muggle science,' Dolohov sneered. I've since realised that, in his mind, "muggle science" meant bombs like the ones that killed so many witches and wizards during the Second World War (so many bombs were dropped in cities all over Europe that it was inevitable that some of them would fall on the hidden streets belonging to the wizarding world. Those streets were hidden from muggle eyes, but they had no defence against bombs. A bomb doesn't care where it falls). 'You know who else tried to combine magic with muggle science? _Mrlakenstein_. Are you deliberately trying to follow in his footsteps?' He looked me up and down. His eyes widened. 'You are, aren't you? Tiho, how could you?!'

'Is that what you think of me?' I said disgustedly. 'Mrlakenstein created abominations and killed thousands of people. I'm trying to save lives, to help people. We're nothing alike.'

'Sorry! Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I... I was surprised, that's all. Muggle science...' He grimaced. 'Tiho, you're a pure-blood wizard and one of the cleverest men I know. You could be unlocking the deepest secrets of magic, but instead you've chosen to play at being a muggle, going to muggle university and studying muggle medicine. Those things are so far beneath you that it's almost laughable. Merlin's breath, why?!'

'It's only a narrow margin that gives me pure-blood status. My mother's grandfather was a muggle,' I pointed out. 'According to the strictest definitions of blood status, I'm a half-blood.'

'I'd never have taken you for a blood traitor, Tiho,' said Dolohov. 'Didn't you tell me that you can trace both sides of your family back to when the city of Skadar was first built?' A hint of mockery entered his voice. 'You were so proud of that.'

'That's right,' I said. It's true that I like being able to trace my family line back into the mists of antiquity (although my surname, Stojanović, doesn't date back that far). I was a lonely child and my imagination was my favourite playmate. I read dusty tomes of family history and I turned that into an enthralling activity by imagining what it must have been like to live in times gone by. I imagined that I was one of my ancestors or that I could travel back in time to help one of my ancestors through a perilous situation. It made me feel as if I was part of a large family, whereas in reality... I never had reason to doubt that my aunt and uncle loved me, but they couldn't be around all the time and I had difficulty making friends of my own age. _Znači_... I'm proud of being a member of a pure-blood family, but I see no reason to sneer at those who aren't. Everyone has a lineage that goes back to the dawn of humanity, after all; most people just don't have access to as many records of their family's history as I did.

'I don't care whether I'm a pure-blood or not,' I said, finally. 'It doesn't matter to me. I don't hate muggles.'

'The wizarding world is under siege,' said Dolohov. He sounded like he was quoting from a pamphlet. 'Our culture is being eroded by the invasion of muggle beliefs and ideas. Muggle-borns sneer at our proudest traditions and tell us how appallingly backwards and primitive we are. They would trample all over what we have taken thousands of years to build. We must put them in their place.'

'We?'

'Yes. Won't you join us? It'll be just like old times!'

I stared at Dolohov for a moment. He seemed to think that the ideological struggle between muggle-borns and blood purists was a straightforward conflict between good and evil, just like the Inferi Wars. My memories of the Inferi Wars were filled with horror and anxiety, but Dolohov had enjoyed being a soldier more than anything else he'd ever experienced. Now, for the second time in his life, he had signed up to be a soldier for what he felt was a good cause. He'd joined the Death Eaters because he wanted to relive his memories of being a hero.

I felt a surge of sympathy for him. I wished there was something I could say to convince him to leave the Death Eaters and do something better with his life. But he firmly believed that he was in the right. And I believed the opposite. There was no reconciling our different points of view.

'You know... Have I ever told you this? My Uncle Goran is a muggle. When my parents died, Uncle Goran and Aunt Nada took me in and raised me like I was their own son.' I said, offering him an easy explanation for why I refused to join the Death Eaters. I had an inkling that his superiors would be displeased with Dolohov if he failed to recruit me. At the time, I didn't realise how right I was.

Dolohov nodded. 'I didn't know that,' he said slowly. 'Well... It seems there's nothing I can say to convince you. Such a pity.'

He changed the subject and I stayed long enough to finish my meal. 'It's been a pleasure, but I think I should go,' I said at last. 'Farewell, Antonin.'

'Farewell, Tiho,' he said, staring into the distance.

* * *

I became a Professor at the Durmstrang Institute, teaching a new generation of Healers. Occasionally, I heard rumours of the civil war that threatened to swallow up all of wizarding Britain. I heard stories of grisly murders, massacres and muggle-borns being tortured to death. The Death Eaters were led by a dark lord who called himself Voldemort (however, several newspapers received dire threats after they revealed his name to the general public. In all subsequent editions they referred to him using vague epithets such as "the British Dark Lord" and "He Who Must Not Be Named". At the time, it seemed odd to me that someone would give himself a name like that and then refuse to let anyone use it. Perhaps he was too embarrassed to change it when he realised that it was horribly pretentious).

Antonin Dolohov was one of the most feared Death Eaters. He seemed to delight in the torture of innocent muggles and anyone who was brave enough to oppose Voldemort. He murdered dozens of people. No one knows exactly how many. When Voldemort was vanquished and the "First Wizarding War" reached its sudden, shocking conclusion, Dolohov was captured and sent to Azkaban. There he will remain for the rest of his life.

I was horrified when I heard of what had become of my old friend, but I wasn't surprised by it. I felt almost as if this was inevitable. I'd known that Dolohov was a violent man and that he could be vicious and brutal. I'd seen how fanatically dedicated he was to the Death Eaters' ideology. The Inferi Wars gave him a purpose in life. By joining the Death Eaters, he was trying to regain that purpose. But when did he become a murderer? When did he become unforgivable? I suspect that the crimes of the Death Eaters grew progressively worse and Dolohov found himself committing more and more terrible acts. Then, at last, there was no going back. Dolohov wanted to be a hero. Instead he became a monster.

I'm not responsible for what Dolohov chose to do with his life, but I'm sure I could have done more to prevent him from descending into criminality. If I'd been a better friend, I might have persuaded him not to join the Death Eaters. I didn't realise that until it was too late. There's no point in looking back and wondering what might have been. I wish it were otherwise.

**End of Part Three**

* * *

_This story was inspired by Jack Yeovil's novel _Drachenfels_ (note: Jack Yeovil is a pseudonym of Kim Newman, one of my favourite authors), by Gene Wolfe's short story, _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_, and the castle of Baldanders in _The Sword of the Lictor_ (also by Gene Wolfe). I would recommend those stories to any lover of fantasy who hasn't already read them._

_I have seen quite a few books and films where the main villain is incredibly powerful, has a huge army and seems invincible, but is defeated because he (or she) makes lots of stupid mistakes. It's for that reason that the _Evil Overlord List_ exists. That made me think: 'what if the villain just pretended to be defeated, put on a big show so that the heroes thought they'd won and used that as an opportunity to escape?' The story of 'The Inferi Wars' was born out of that idea._

_I wanted to give that mad scientist-wizard Mrlakenstein some strange and impressively powerful magic, spells to warp time and space. "_Mille Passuum_" is Latin for "one thousand paces". In ancient Roman times, when Roman armies were marching into unknown territory, they would place a marker after each thousand paces so that they would know how far they'd travelled. The English mile is based on the Roman mille passuum. I thought that was an appropriate incantation for a spell that stretched a room to an impossible length. Translated from the Latin, "_Infinitus Est_" means something like "it is endless" or "it is infinite"._

_My theory that the Killing Curse does not have an unlimited range is not part of the Harry Potter canon, but I think it makes sense that a "jet of green light" would dissipate before it was able to travel a massive distance. Another reason why it would not be sensible to use the Killing Curse at long range is that the target could simply move out of the way; in the Harry Potter books, the Killing Curse is only ever used at short range and it seems possible to dodge._

_A number of films, books and plays etc. have spawned from the idea that it might be difficult to adjust to living as a civilian after fighting in a war. It was a theme that I wanted to explore with the character of Antonin Dolohov. In this as in so many other things, I think it likely that the wizarding world would have the attitude that was common to many nations a few centuries ago: something like "now that the war's over, we've got a lot of soldiers standing around not doing very much. We'll either send them off to fight another war or just ignore them and hope for the best."_

_Skadar is the Serbian name for Shkodër, a city in Albania. I named the hero of this story Stojanović because I enjoyed reading about the Serbian epic poem, _'The Building of Skadar'_ (in which there are twins named Stoja and Stoja_n).

_I've explained the significance of the name Mrlakenstein, but I wanted to explain the significance of the names of some of the other original characters in this story: Tihomir is a name meaning "quiet peace". Stojanović is derived from the word "stojati", meaning "to stand" or "to be immovable". Tihomir Stojanović is a name that quite accurately reflects the personality of the man._

_In Greek myth, Minos was a cruel tyrant who demanded that the Athenian king send seven young men and seven young women to be eaten by the Minotaur. In 'The Inferi Wars', Mínós Hrabal has dedicated his life to fighting monsters and defending innocent people; he's almost the opposite of the mythical Minos (however, there is another Greek myth in which Minos was a benevolent ruler who became a judge of the dead in the afterlife). Also, "Teutamides" means "son of he who repeats himself". Perhaps Mrlakenstein had a special reason for calling __Mínós_ by that name (or perhaps I'm being needlessly obtuse)? Hmm.  


_Mínós Hrabal will eventually reappear in 'Broken Lives'. Look out for that._

_This story is now complete. I sincerely hope that you've enjoyed reading it. Please review!_


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